A Change Is A Comin'
by HBQ100
Summary: One shot with the possibility for more. Veronica's thoughts after the Series Finale. Piz, Wallace, her dad, Logan. Always Logan. LoVe perspective.


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Summary: Veronica's thoughts after the series finale. Set-up as a one shot, but it could be the prelude to a story. I'm not sure yet.

**A Change Is A Comin'**

I've never been one for true introspection. I'm much more a doer. But it's almost four in the morning, and I can't close my eyes without my recent mistakes flooding my brain.

I hurt Piz. I drug an innocent person into the middle of Logan's and my crap, and I'm not proud of that. I'm not over Logan Echolls. I don't think I'll ever be over Logan Echolls. I love him. I know it's hard to believe. I agree when he asks, but those three words linked together have never come out of my mouth willingly. It's completely unfair to him. But you see, Logan -. No, I was thinking about Piz. Even in my mind I can't put thoughts of my current boyfriend before my ex. Piz saw the way I looked at Logan after he beat-up Gory. I know he was disappointed, but Logan was right. It is the code we live by: someone always has to pay. Piz wants me to walk away, to turn the other cheek, but I can't do that. I'm not a good enough person to rise above my feelings of revenge. I need payback. I need people to understand that they can't mess with me and expect to walk away unscathed. It's ingrained in me now. Doing anything less... well, it feels like the coward's way out. So I looked at Logan with gratitude and longing, because he understands that about me. Piz never will. And I can't be with someone who doesn't understand that fundamental part of who I am.

So I guess I'm breaking-up with Piz. One problem solved. Wallace will chew me out. He told me not to mess with his roommate's feelings. In my defense, I didn't meant to do it. It was a reaction to finding out Logan slept with Madison. The pendulum swung to the opposite side and I followed. It was Duncan and my need for normalcy all over again. At least this time, I figured it out before I slept with the wrong guy. So Wallace will chew me out, but I know he won't leave. He's my friend in the truest sense of the word. He'll be disappointed for awhile, but he'll forgive me. That's what friends do. Still, it's probably a good thing we'll be apart this summer. Time to let the smoke clear.

I'm not sure making amends to my dad will be so easy. He won the election. The margin was small, but he did win. Of course, if he's convicted of evident tampering, he won't be sheriff for long. Tomorrow I'll go see Jake Kane again. Jake got my father thrown out of office once. This time he's going to keep him in office. I know secrets. I know all sorts of secrets. Not only about The Castle. Lying in bed with Duncan, him pissed off at his parents for not helping with baby Lilly, he told me things. Things Jake won't want me to make public knowledge. I'll bribe him if I have to. If I have to, of course I'll have to! I'll bribe him period. I'll do whatever it takes and I'll fix what I did to my dad's career.

And then there's the other thing I need to do. I need to keep Logan safe from Gory Sorkin. Gory Sorkin, youngest son of Uri Sorkin, head of a Russian mob family based out of Chicago. Amazing the information you can find online. I'm not sure how to use that knowledge to my benefit yet, but I will have access to FBI files during my internship. I'll find something, something to get Logan clear of this. I owe him that much.

Logan isn't a bad guy. He makes mistakes; everyone makes mistakes. But I hone in on all the bad, on all the questionable, and use it against him. I hold him to an impossibly high standard and I'm almost relieved when he fails to meet it. A good psychiatrist would have a field day with me. I have abandonment issues. Lilly, my mom, Duncan. I'm scared Logan's going to leave me too. So I strike first.

I hate Madison Sinclair. I'm not even sure why. She passed me a drink at a party. She didn't know anymore than I did that there was GHB in it. She was an unwitting link in a chain of events, so what happened to me wasn't her fault. I know that. I do. I guess, she's more a symbol than anything else. She's _that_ girl. The one with all the privileges, all the advantages, who doesn't appreciate them. The one who uses her parents' money as an excuse to be a bitch, to think she's better than everyone else. The one who's petty and vindictive, and yes, she does remind me of Lilly, just a little. But in the scheme of things, on the list of all the people who've done me wrong, Madison doesn't even make the top twenty. But she does remind me of Lilly, and Logan sleeping with her was like Logan choosing Lilly over me. Ridiculous, I know, but it cut just the same. He said he didn't do it to hurt me and I believe him. I believe him.

We're both so broken, Logan and I. We have cracks that with a little prodding turn into gaping chasms in our psyche. I know I prod at his all the time, but he's so much better at shielding me from them. He internalizes the pain I cause. He doesn't strike out at me, not as often as he should.

Logan... Logan always wants real answers from me. He wants me to share my truths, my burdens. And I lie. _I lie_. I don't tell him what he needs to know unless I'm screaming it at him on my way out the door. And even then, I sensor the truth. It was easier to tell him, I can't get over you sleeping with Madison, than to open up and say, she reminds me of Lilly. Don't choose Lilly. Choose me. Love me. That would have been exposing my fears. There's no way he could know that I look at him sometimes, this man that I love with everything in me, although I can't express it like I should, and I think, would we be here now, together, if Lilly hadn't died? How could he know. I've never told me.

I know I'm too hard on Logan. He's twenty years old. He doesn't have to have the rest of his life figured out yet. He's in college, he's going to class, he's exploring his options. I know something will spark his interest. Logan's intelligent, he's not going to waste that. And yet, I push and push and push, knowing I'm not going to get an answer. And then, I get upset. Unrealistic expectations, that's me.

He gets angry at me for putting myself in danger. He gets angry at me when I don't tell him everything that's going on. He has a right to be angry. I don't tell him because he'll want to protect me. He'll point out the fact that what I'm contemplating is dangerous, and I don't want to hear it. I want to solve the case.

Somewhere along the line the case - whatever the case - became more important than me. I want everything to end perfectly, no loose strings. I want the puzzle to come together, no extra pieces. But it never works out that way. I was raped. No, I slept with Duncan. No, Cassidy did rape me. He jumps off a building. Aaron killed Lilly. Aaron's acquitted by the court. Aaron's killed in his hotel suite. No one knows who did it. Mercer's the campus rapist. Mercer has an alibi. Mercer_ is _the campus rapist. He almost rapes me. It's never simple. It's never easy. There are always more questions, more cases, and I keep pursuing them. I can't step out of this loop I've created for myself. Maybe everyone is right. Maybe I won't be happy until I get myself killed.

God, I want to be happy. I want to live in Logan's arms, in his heart, protected from the world, because when I let that happen, I _am_ happy. But I can't seem to translate that happiness to the rest of my life. It wouldn't take much to make us work. It really wouldn't. A few small compromises. A couple of honest conversations. I'd have to let my guard down, but I know Logan wouldn't hurt me. I know that. Logically, it is something I know to be true. But I refuse to let myself give in to it. I hold tight to my fears and I don't let him see past them. I keep him at what I think is a safe distance, but then I get hurt anyway because he stumbles over one of those cracks he doesn't even know is there. I set us up for failure, and yet I'm still surprised when it happens. And I blame him. Always him. I never take my share of the responsibility. I never let him be human, fallible. I expect perfection even though I am so far from it myself. And I never, never forgive him.

It has to stop. I have to stop it. I have six weeks at the FBI, six weeks of alone time to figure it out how _I'm_ going to change. How _I'm_ going to be the person Logan needs _me_ to be. For once, it's going to start with me.

Parker's gone, and he's going to be alone this summer. He's going to sleep with other people. I've accepted that. I have to, because I'm not ready to tell him I want another chance. Not until I figure how to change. Six weeks is a long time, but then again, it's no time at all. When I return, if I still don't have answers, or at least a glimmer of an answer, I won't go back to him. If I did, the cycle would only start again. This time I want it to be our last time. No more being together, then being apart, then being together again. I want to _stay_ together. But telling him all this now before I know how to make it work, and then asking him to wait for me, that would be cruel. I don't want to be cruel to Logan anymore.

Oh, he'd wait. He'd wait without question, because all Logan does is wait for me. He waits for me to open up. He waits for me to be honest. He waits for me to forgive him. He waits for me to show him I love him as much as he loves me. He waits and hopes, and I...

If I come back and he's moved on to someone else, not a fling, but a real girlfriend, a new Parker, it'll hurt. But the narcissist in me knows he'll always belong to me. So _I'll _wait this time. Wait for her to see what everyone else already knows. That together or not together, Logan is mine. She'll fade away, because no one can keep us apart, no matter how much they try, and I'll have my Logan back.

It'll be a change he won't see coming. I'll be a different Veronica Mars, but only for him because he deserves it. Dick will make fun of him for taking me back and warn him that I'm no good. My friends will roll their eyes at what they can only see as the next hill in our roller coaster ride of a relationship. My dad will silently sit on the sidelines, waiting for the other shoe to drop yet again. And they will all be wrong. Only Logan and I will know the truth. It'll be one of the secrets we keep just between us. And at night, under the cover of darkness, and the cover of the covers of our bed, we'll laugh at them, because they won't know what we know. He'll hold me, and I'll feel protected, and I'll find a way to keep that feeling with me all the time.

Because this is my next case. This is the one I truly need the answers to. This is the one that is going to change my life - I'm going to make sure of it. This will be Logan's and my perfect ending. And beginning and middle. With all our broken edges, we are the two puzzle pieces that fit together. And there will be loose ends, but we'll tie each other up in them to keep us close. And there will be extra pieces, but we'll incorporate them into the big picture.

I'm Veronica Mars and he's Logan Echolls, and together we shouldn't work, but we do. We bring out the best and the worst in each other. Our relationship is complicated and irrational, but it's the most precious thing in my life, and I'm done trying to convince myself it's not. I love him and he loves me, and not Lilly or Duncan or my mother or his father or any of our past mistakes is going to change that.

Now all I have to do is figure out how.

Finis


End file.
